


Scattered Pieces

by ssa_archivist



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M, episode-related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-28
Updated: 2004-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-01 11:19:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/356115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's just scattered pieces of the man he used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scattered Pieces

## Scattered Pieces

by Meghan

<http://www.livejournal.com/users/strangefancy/>

* * *

Scattered Pieces 

Disclaimer: I just borrowed them so I could watch the Clex make out in my closet. I'll give them back, promise. They're not mine. Spoilers: Everything, to be safe. 

Inspired By: Amiee Mann's 'It's Not' from her 'Lost In Space' album, which I have no claims over either. Rating: PG  
Feedback: It's my first time, so be gentle. 

This is his hand. 

Thin flesh covering the veins and muscle and tendon and bone. The skin is discolored now with the dark purple of bruises and the burnt maroon of dried blood. This is the hand that he used to make a million decisions a day with and it has signed countless sheets of unnecessary paper. It held the steering wheel of his car as he drove at rates of speed that made the passing scenery blur against the tinted windows. It is the hand that he typed emails to his father with and it is the hand that defended him against attacks from the same man. 

He has two of them. Two hands. They look the same. 

Long fingers capped with elegant nails that were once taken care of on a regular basis. These hands were once covered in pale, translucent skin that only highlighted the fine bones that ran throughout. 

They were treasured hands. 
    
    
            They helped him hold coffee, helped him bathe and pick up a fencing foil.  These are the hands that participated in countless science experiments, some legal and some not.  These are the hands that mix the best martini in the eastern United States, not that he'd ever admit that fact.
            These are the same hands that saved his life as his plane crashed in the Atlantic.  They were 
    

the hands that caressed the bodies of others. They saved him from serious trouble when they only patted Clark in a brotherly when his begged for something harder, deeper, _more_. 

These hands touched Helen last. In some perverse way, he's glad that the labor has rubbed them raw. Nature did a much better job of scrubbing away his skin, tainted by her, than he ever could. 

They definitely look different now; the weeks of work and exposure to salt air have taken their toll. His hands have dried out and the skin is cracked in places, leaving behind long strips of red flesh that adorn his blessed hands like angry tattoos. They're thinner than they were before the island, if that's even possible. 

If his abused hands are any indication of how the rest of him must look, he's thankful he does not have a mirror. 

His hands lead to arms that attach at the shoulder to his body. His body is also thinner, from what he can tell. Layers of his skin have burned bright and then peeled away in sheets to reveal a golden flesh that looks unnatural to him. The bones that once moved almost unnoticed under layers of flesh now push against the thin layer of skin, mocking him, revealing their presence and reminding him that he can do nothing about it. This is the body that used to throb in time with deep techno beats under mirrored lights in smokey clubs. This is the body that he used to abuse with too many drinks and too much drugs. The body that accepted the many sleepless nights and used people, most of whom he no longer remembers. This body helped him get through four years in boarding school and this is the body he learned to love, despite it's differences from the other boys. This is the body that others learned to love, as soon as he learned how to use it correctly. 

This is the body that he wanted Clark to love. 

Now, his body is used to do the most menial tasks. Somehow, it has learned to adapt and no longer minds the labor. It's grown quiet since it's become a custom to Island living. 

His body houses his heart though and it refuses to stay silent.. 

This is the heart that wanted forever. 

That's why he married Helen. For forever. For that sense of companionship, for that sense of belonging, for the family they would have in the future. His heart quietly mourns for the children he will now never have; the children he used to dream of as he stood in front of the stained glass windows in his office. There was always something soothing about the mirid of colors that would swirl on the floor below his feet as he stood there, imaging tiny adults running around. Little beings that would throw their chubby arms up in the air, forcing him to pick them up, regardless of how much work was sitting on his desk. 

Stupid, pointless, foolish wishes that will never come true. 

His heart aches like a knife has been shoved through it and is currently logged there, making the tired muscle beat erratic. The odd working of the organ is not a new phenomenon; he reluctantly remembers his heart doing the same thing before Smallville. Mornings used to find him staring in the mirror, face drawn and pale, breath tasting like stale cigarettes and stranger's kisses. Hands shaking from coming down from drugs he was unused to. On those mornings, he would stare into the mirror, heart beating hollow, and know that he was missing something. 

This is the heart that loved Clark and craved normalcy at the same time. It's his mind that chose Helen. His practical mind that he is rapidly losing. 

He feels it in the morning when he wakes up knowing that there was something that he had yesterday but lost in the time he was sleeping. Lately, he worries that he is losing parts of his memory, his knowledge, his intelligence, like it's somehow liquefying under the hot sun. He keeps trying lecture himself about the great rulers of the past, especially about the ones who were stranded and left to their own devises. It reminds him of his life before and usually offers some measure of comfort. Yesterday though, while forging, he couldn't remember the Greek myth about the man went to war and got lost coming home to his wife. It scared him more than watching two tons of water rush toward his vulnerable body. 

He's even starting to forget minute details and names. Last week, he tried for three hours to remember the name of the first girl he slept with and all he could come up with was the fleeting memory of red hair. Sometimes though, while exploring the island, a sight or sound will help him recall pieces of his life that he fears he has forgotten. Two days ago he stumbled on a grove of red flowers that smelled overwhelmingly like the flowers that adorned the hall on the day he got married. 

It took him twenty minutes for him to destroy them all. 

This is the mind that is starting to forget what Clark looks like. The loss makes his extremities go weak, his hands shake and chest burn. 

There are other parts of him that are different too. His eyes are now dry all the time and unable to shed tears, not that he has since he washed ashore. They feel like sandpaper grating over and over against dry wood as he blinks them. His tongue, that he once used to use to his absolute advantage, now lies dormant in his mouth. His legs ache all the time and he suspects that the fractures they received during the crash healed badly. 

This is Lex. 

The Lex who still dreams that he'll wake up on the beach to see the beaming face of the only person who has ever really mattered to him. This is the Lex who actually wakes up every morning to the indifferent sun and remembers why he doesn't get saved. 

There is no redemption for him, not in this lifetime. 

This is the Luthor son who no longer gives a shit about pleasing his father, gaining favor with small town inhabitants, having the love of his bride or spending large amounts of money just because he can. This is now the Luthor son who now would give up his life for a long walk down a dusty Kansas road beside his best friend. This is the Luthor son who has finally realized how simple life is. 

This is the same son who mourns because he understands the irony in just how late all of his revelations are. 

And finally, this is his soul. 

When he was little, it remained deep in him, warming him from the inside out. It shined through his eyes and made his mother smile; it scared his father in it's beauty, it's purity. It's the same soul that got knocked outside his body the day of the meteor shower but remained tethered to him, following him around like a balloon tied to his wrist. It was the arrangement that made it easy for him to live through his puberty using everyone and everything at his disposal. It's the soul that got placed back into him the day he died and woke up on the side of a river. It's the reason he put himself in danger for others and the reason he wanted, so badly, to prove himself to the world. He worries now that the good will not balance out the bad in his life. His soul laments the loss of time to make amends for his past. 

This is who he is now. 

Just pieces of a person that have been so used and damaged, that they no longer work together. He can feel them dying one by one and he's not so sure that he cares enough to try and stop them. It doesn't feel like it's time for him to go but he doesn't see any other way. 

This is the man, lost on an island, that is scattered pieces of the person he used to be. He's not sure how he can make himself whole again. 

He's beginning to accept the fact that he may never be able to. 


End file.
